The track of the python: a West African origin story: Eugenia Shankilin

The Kom people of Cameroon’s Grassfields believe they were led to the area they now occupy by a python (ngvim).1 The python that led the Kom is said to have been an incarnation of their late ruler, who hanged himself after falling victim to a trick played by the ruler of Bamessi. The lake that formed from the body fluids of the late Kom ruler exploded, killing most of the Bamessi people.